Will U.S. recovery go global?

Before we get too giddy about any U.S. economic “recovery,” we should remember that the preceding economic collapse was global. No recovery can succeed unless it, too, is global. Will that happen? The world can no longer rely for growth on free-spending Americans, who are overburdened by debt and sobered by trillions of dollars of losses on homes and stocks. Without a substitute for American buying, any global revival will be feeble, because the United States needs export-led growth and other countries must somehow offset their lost sales to our market.

Developing countries would seem to be the obvious replacement for American spending as the world's economic motor. These countries already account for nearly half of global economic output, estimates the International Monetary Fund. China (11.4 percent), India (4.8 percent) and Brazil (2.9 percent) alone represent nearly a fifth. By comparison, the United States is also a fifth.

All these societies have huge needs for housing, consumer goods, health care and more. Except as a job creator, export-led growth doesn't make much sense. Logically, these countries should produce more for themselves and less for export. Stronger domestic spending would also increase their demand for imports. As a result, the United States would export more and import less. What economists call “global imbalances” – big U.S. trade deficits matched by big surpluses in China and elsewhere – would shrink. World economic growth would revive. Problem solved.

Just possibly, this transformation is starting. Other countries have stimulated their economies, most conspicuously China. Government spending increased; credit eased. China expanded at an impressive 7.9 percent rate in the second quarter. “Asia's Astonishing Rebound,” headlines The Economist, which also notes fast growth in Indonesia and South Korea. As for India, the IMF reckons it will grow 5.4 percent this year and 6.5 percent next. Brazil's long-term prospects are good, judges Norman Gall, an American who heads the Fernand Braudel Institute in Sao Paulo. The country has a “strong industrial base and energetic and creative entrepreneurs”; government debt has dropped from 85 percent of gross domestic product in 2002 to 65 percent now. Even France and Germany show signs of recovery.

Sounds reassuring. Still, there's room for skepticism. If Americans are spending less and saving more, then a balanced global economy requires people elsewhere to spend more and save less. That's the permanent fix, not repeated bursts of temporary economic “stimulus.” The large trade imbalances fundamentally stemmed from high saving rates, especially in Asia, that dampened domestic spending and encouraged export-led growth.

China may resort to aggressive export promotion, at other countries' expense. Its currency, the renminbi, remains undervalued, and export rebates on its value added tax recently increased. Ben Simpfendorfer, an analyst in Hong Kong for the Royal Bank of Scotland, agrees. As U.S. and European markets have weakened, Chinese exporters have shifted to “emerging market” countries, such as Brazil and Egypt, Simpfendorfer says. China's exports could hurt other developing countries.

Economist Nicholas Lardy of the Peterson Institute is more optimistic. China's leaders, he says, recognize their dangerous dependence on exports. They're trying to boost domestic spending by decreasing household saving. One reason for high savings, Lardy says, is the shredding of the social safety net. Historically, state-owned companies provided health and pension benefits; as these firms shut, benefits vanished and workers compensated by saving more to pay for sickness and old age. Now, China is rebuilding the safety net. Since 2005, spending on health insurance, pensions and education has roughly doubled.

What counts is the political and cultural capacity of countries – especially China – to graduate from export-led growth. The global economy is at a fateful juncture. Without the prop of American spending, the world needs a new basis for mutually beneficial growth. Without it, we may face protectionism, nationalism and economic strife.